Redemption
By: Somewhere Sky
Disclaimer: Of course, as always – the rights to the Harry Potter realm of fiction belongs solely to J.K. Rowling and her brilliant mind. Although I may admit, I shall always be slightly jealous.
A One Shot dedicated to the under-told story of Severus Snape and his heroism. He has been a much overlooked character, and I have done his restless soul justice, or so I should hope. This fiction is also in response to a fiction challenge in the HPFC Forum, details listed below in regards to the challenge specifics.
Severus Snape was dying.
He could feel that last breath poking at the tips of his purple lips. The inescapable cloud of air was caught somewhere in-between the wish to die and the hope to live, as if he had not suffered enough agony – a twisted humour it was that his own final moment before death was caught in the purgatory of his own heart. Trapped by a love that never was, a boiling hate for the child he never fathered and a begotten passion for living a life of darkness and betrayal.
Regret.
It wasn't regret that perspired through his veins as he looked up at the Wizarding World's darling and saviour from across the room. He lived his entire life full of regrets. He should have kissed her; maybe he could have told her those infamous three words that were hushed by fear. Maybe he would have held her hand if he hadn't been so transfixed by the golden twitching of her smile. He should have followed her, chased after her in her moment of need. Why didn't he take care of her? He knew that he should have cared for the boy in her passing, fathered him in the absence of a father. When he stared into the eyes of the orphaned son; his heart shook, shattered and broke all over again as he was reminded of her. Why did he put his trust and faith in such a dark endeavor? He shouldn't have put another wizard in charge of his own meekly, human desires.
Merlin, he cried. He should have helped the boy; should have saved himself.
Fear.
Snape was no longer frightened, though stabs of dread trickled at the brinks of his sluggish heart; he did not fear death. He had faced far more turbulent and treacherous moments in his waking days. Lying to the face of a snake-eyed man, and being tortured each time he envisioned that man's wand with green sparks flying into the back of Lily Potter. It was enough trepidation to bound a man in shackles and never leave his place of brooding. It was enough to unstitch a life's worth of repairs, to an unduly love and a broken man.
"I am Extraordinary" whispered, hush.
Infectious, Immoral, sardonic and mordant, such as this wizard was. Extraordinary was his existential being: it was embedded into a core of darkness and withdrawal. Tom Riddle was of greatness and absurdity; to this Severus Snape could very well admit. Though, the definition of what it meant to be great was not a mound of excellence or a future lit to the stars' envy. It was a greatness void of pleasure, and a humane gratification. With death perched in the ravines of his cold, cracked lips, the Dark Lord spoke to a different hierarchy, one of his own indulgences. His heart may have crippled, his inflated psyche however, fed unanimously on the woe of others. He stared through his ravenous eyes with an empty, hollow being as he raised his crooked, meandering hand to slaughter.
Green
It was the sick repugnant smell of reptilian abhorrence that brought Severus Snape's body to creak with the acceptance of his fate.
And he saw green.
The very echo of emerald in her most embellished eyes. There was something about the vibrance there, the atomic presence of something so very plain, and yet it belayed the same passion as an ocean in the midst of a crude storm. It was the way that the colour humbled him. The thought that such a timid human being could curate such a momentum in his feeling, was absurd; it caused a humidity in his heart that moved in loud, monotonous waves. It was instead, her audacity, the very way she twirled her hair when pouring over a textbook. It was the way in which she loved him, unintentionally so.
Silence.
An emptiness in the air rippled through, there was no tension here; the absolute quiet had brought to Snape a peacefulness, a grasp on his thoughts as the poison trickled through his weakened state. It was with a shudder of cold, and it welcomed him with an almost chuckle, to think how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me. And for this much he was certain: He must help the boy. Harry Potter was never the type to be physically powerful; he was overcome by his indulgent, stubborn and curious ways. For these traits Severus Snape adored Harry's mother, but for these traits, surely; this war would be the death of the golden son.
A shadow through the window, the sundry wisp of concern, and a body periled with not hatred but uncertainty. Harry Potter stood without sound above his old professor's body; and placed a warm hand on his neck trying to prevent the inevitable.
Take them, he whispered.
A last glitter of hope was seen twinkling in his eyes as the boy carried his memories from the teardrops that graced his pale, white skin. There was a brief glance toward him as the boy stood walking away; it was in that moment when both wizards finally accepted that they were fighting the same war. It was a war of utter turmoil and loss – one that wouldn't soon be avenged. It was the loss of a loved one.
The feeling was hollow; it consummated a dustbowl of the soul; as it melted into soundless oblivion. It was a feel of falling, a bottomless pit with nothing to grab onto; a tumbling, swirling blackness not much void of despair. Gloom welling up from below, engulfed in nothingness. Severus Snape gripped the often sinking, clawing at the walls, dragged down and swamped with negative emotion vendetta. It was as merciless as sinking sand, he felt smothered, with a harbour of helplessness. Tears as silent as the grave began to roll in procession as Snape allowed desolation to trample on his heart; even the sun to him seemed so cold.
The boy was gone.
Left to this room was he, to listen to the sounds of gore and violence on the outward bound ways of the forest. He could hear the crumbling of Hogwarts, perspiring at the thought of the bodies that may lay there unmoving. There was a purpose revoked, as the words of relief spat through the air, it hissed through the window. A sound of victory, Harry Potter had done the unbelievable, the courageous – something indefinite that would not soon go unknown into the ground. The boy had won.
An onlooker might have seen contentment in his expression as Severus Snape lay his body more solidly into the ground. It would have taken someone to know him to recognize the exhaustion and tranquility that shed light on his last moments of light.
Moments into dying, swamped with darkness, Severus Snape closed his tired eyes to see her smile, and with one final gasp;
It was a romantic way to die.
Author's Note:
Level: Medium
Page Chosen at Random: Six-Fify-Eight
Prompt: "You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me." Originally spoken by Lord Voldemort to his followers after his rebirth in Goblet of Fire (US Edition).
This piece is not for the light of heart, I think it is much stronger than most pieces in the way it speaks of sad and dismal times. The loss of a loved one, the war, the remembrance of the dead. I aimed for heart-filled, and tried to avoid angst. I hope it turns out on your end, as well as it did on mine. The word count is 1,167 without all the Author Mumbo/Jumbo.
Thank you so kindly for reading, R&R as always!
~ Somewhere Sky